Exile's Return Read Free

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    The atmosphere in the room shifted, an indefinable rustling like the dried leaves of an autumn tree. There would be many here who stood shoulder to shoulder with the King on that day.
    Daniel nodded, and for a moment they were both transported back to that moment when two young men had thought they were invincible.
    The King waved a forefinger at Daniel’s face. ‘A legacy of Worcester?’
    Daniel touched the scar that scribed his right cheekbone, serving as a visible reminder to all who saw him of that terrible day. Beneath his severe clothes, no one would see the other scars, the long lines that crossed his back and circled his wrists. Those too were a legacy of Worcester.
    â€˜Hyde here tells me you have something of an interesting history. How did you come to be aboard a French privateer?’
    Daniel hunched his shoulders, an almost unconscious habit he used to release the tautness of the scars that marred his back. He had been circumspect in how much he had revealed to Hyde and he repeated the story.
    â€˜After Worcester, I was sent to Barbados,’ he began, conscious of a murmur rising in the room behind him. Barbados had been a death sentence and he had survived.
    â€˜I escaped the plantation to which I had been assigned and threw my lot in with the crew of L’Archange ,’ he said with a casual shrug.
    A slow smile lightened the King’s saturnine countenance. ‘I assume you had little alternative, my friend.’
    Daniel ducked his head in agreement.
    â€˜I’m not sure our friends in London have taken too kindly to the predation on English ships,’ Hyde said.
    Daniel fixed the courtier with a hard stare. ‘We carried lettres de marque from Louis. We were not pirates.’
    The King’s moustache twitched. ‘A fine distinction, my friend. Has it made you a wealthy man?’
    Daniel hesitated. The five years of privateering had netted him a comfortable sum. Sufficient to restore a life in England he had not known since before the war, but hardly a fortune.
    The King laughed and held up a hand. ‘You do not need to tell me. Indeed, I do not wish to know.’ He leaned an elbow on the arm of his chair and inclined his head. ‘So why have you returned now?’
    â€˜I heard that Cromwell is dead,’ Daniel responded.
    â€˜But you are still an escaped prisoner, are you not, and a privateer? No doubt there is a price on your head.’ The King leaned his elbow on his chair, stroking his moustache.
    Daniel shrugged. ‘Possibly, but that is not why I am here, Your Majesty. I am seeking news of my brother, Christopher Lovell. He –’
    A hush fell on the room, and the back of Daniel’s neck prickled.
    â€˜Do you mean Kit Lovell?’ Hyde asked.
    The breath caught in Daniel’s throat as the King frowned. ‘Lovell?’
    â€˜You recall the man, Your Majesty. That affair of Gerard?’ Hyde leaned down to whisper in the King’s ear, and Daniel’s sense of foreboding trebled.
    â€˜Good God, I thought I knew your face.’ An unfamiliar voice came from the courtiers behind him and, the tension broken, Daniel turned to see the speaker, a trim man of middle height with light brown hair curling to his shoulder.
    He too looked familiar, but Daniel could not immediately place him. There had been many visitors to Eveleigh during the long years of the war. He could have been one of many.
    â€˜Sir, you have the advantage of me,’ Daniel responded.
    â€˜Longley,’ the man replied with a bow. ‘Giles Longley. We played cards on the eve of Worcester — your brother, Jonathan Thornton, and I. Do you recall?’
    Daniel stared at the man as small snatches of memory began to snap into place. A card game on the eve of Worcester, Kit and his friends playing their last hand before the battle that would decide their fates. They had tried to warn him but he had not heeded their words.
    The arrogance